When a rail vehicle travels through a curve, the centrifugal force produces a moment whereby the car tilts towards the outside of the curve. As a result of this tilting, the system of coordinates also rotates for the passenger situated in the car body, and part of the gravitational acceleration now acts as lateral acceleration, which is perceived as particularly disagreeable.
Particularly in the case of rapid travel through curves with high transverse acceleration at the wheelset, permissible values for the passenger are clearly exceeded in the absence of additional measures.
So-called tilting technology comprising curve-dependent car body control is known from the prior art, and allows the car bodies of a railway train to be tilted towards the inside of the curve and therefore reduce the perceived lateral acceleration.
It is thus possible to travel through curves faster or increase passenger comfort when travelling though curves (comfort tilting).
Tilting technology systems disclosed in the prior art, e.g. as described in EP 0619212, allow curve tilting up to 8°. The speed in curves can therefore be increased by up to 30% without thereby adversely affecting passenger comfort due to increased lateral acceleration.
A disadvantage of the known tilting technology systems is their comparatively high design costs, also resulting in high costs in terms of manufacturing, power requirements, sensor technology and maintenance.